Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“Pa,” he said with a deep, sad sigh, “I can’t take four years of his life away.”
“Four?”
The look I got, like I was just so dumb, would have made me laugh, but I clenched my jaw really tight so I wouldn’t.
“That’s how long med school is,” he informed me like I didn’t know that, still sounding stuffed up and miserable. “I can’t ask him to live like he is for the next––”
“You finished some course work early so you could be at George’s wedding,” I reminded him. “And you and Finn stayed an extra day at the B and B after we all left. Is it impossible to imagine you having any time off at all?”
He shook his head. “It’s only going to get worse. I thought before it got intense that it would be like college and I could balance everything. But it’s nothing like that.”
“Okay.”
“When I told Finn how it was going to be, I thought I knew.”
“But you didn’t.”
“That’s right,” he said, and there were tears again. “I told Hannah I can’t take her on her normal birthday outing, and I feel like shit about that. I didn’t want to even see her face be all sad, so I shoved the pair of earrings at her and got the hell out of there.”
He ran away.
“I love her and I’m disappointing her and everybody’s gonna move out and leave me and I’m thinking I should just move home because you and Dad will take care of me and not judge me and it won’t be like I’ll have random hookups in the house because I don’t do that. I have to have feelings for someone or love…them like…”
“And my goodness, when would you even have the time?”
He scowled at me and I worked really hard not to smile.
“This isn’t funny,” he muttered, sniffled, then lifted his red, puffy eyes to me.
“I know that. But love, the most important thing you have to remember is that you do not get to make other people’s decisions for them. Ever. You can’t. Everyone is responsible for themselves.”
“If I let Finn stay, he will because he’s the best guy, all loyal and steadfast, but he’ll be miserable and then later on he’ll resent me and then he’ll get bitter and eventually leave me for someone easier and able to give him what he wants.”
“And you know exactly what he wants and needs?”
He groaned. “You can’t fix this by appealing to my logic, because I’m actually being really logical at the moment. Finn needs more than I can give him.”
“As in?”
“Come on,” he rasped, and really, it was heartbreaking. “He needs time and love and sex, all right? If I can’t even do that when I stagger home, then—I’m useless to him.”
I chuckled, and he glared at me. “I feel like I used to be like this,” I told him.
“What?”
“I think maybe I imagined the worst instead of hoping for the best and went off half-cocked without giving another person a choice in the matter. I think I did it to your father because I was always certain I knew best.”
“You’re not hearing me.”
“I am,” I said, getting up. “And you’re scared, and I understand that. Because what if Finn actually stays all the way through med school and then dumps you once you’re done? And after med school there’s being a first-year doctor, and won’t that be hard work and long hours as well? I mean, that’s how it looks on Gray’s Anatomy.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I think I do. I think you don’t want to be hurt, so you’re going to cut things off now so down the road, you won’t be.”
“No, that’s––”
“You have to be brave in life, and especially in love.”
“That’s great advice and all, but when you can read the writing on the wall, you––”
“But I don’t think you can, Nostradamus, not really. Because you don’t know what’s in Finn’s heart unless you ask him.”
He sighed deeply, rubbed his face on the pillow, then stopped, turned his head, and closed his eyes. “Just give me, like, a half an hour, will you?”
I scoffed. “As though I will not meddle.”
“No, Pa, not this time. You have to let it go.”
“It’s like you don’t even know me,” I said as I walked to the door and opened it, face-to-face with a distraught-looking Finn Murray.
He hadn’t heard everything; Sam and I had given our kids privacy, so the doors were solid and thick. But he knew Kola was in there making decisions for their future. His face told me so.
Stepping out of the way, I watched as he crossed to the bed and lay down over my son, pinning Kola beneath him, nuzzling his face into his hair.
“Finn,” Kola moaned softly, and I heard the ache up from his soul.
“Stop this,” Finn whispered, and turned his head to kiss the side of Kola’s neck.